The Bees Themed Activities were a lot of fun and the kids had a blast! They loved making Bees and Flowers Snacks, painting bees on rocks, transferring ‘pollen’ from flowers and taking part in lots of other Bee activities!
Bees Themed Activities
Creative Space
Play dough, stamps, scissors, lacing beads and cards, puzzles and blocks are set out for the children to choose from, and get creative during this 30 minute period.
Bees Themed Circle Time
Every day during Circle Time we do the morning routine, which includes the Calendar and ‘Number, Color, Shape and Letter of the week’. We then read a story, sing a few songs and do a group activity.
On every Monday we change the ‘Classroom Helpers’ Classroom Jobs. Each child has a name card on a popsicle stick, and they get to choose their job of the week.
Bees Themed Circle Time Activities
Activity 1: Weekend News
Every Monday morning each child gets a chance to talk about their weekend and what they did. The children then draw a picture in the ‘weekend news’ journal, and the teacher writes down what they have said.
Activity 2: How do bees make honey?
Activity 3: Enzo the Bee Adventure with Cosmic Kids Yoga
Activity 4: Bumblebee Number Ordering Game
I found this great idea over at NurtureStore. I used the same materials, but instead of words, I wrote the numbers 1 -20 on small pieces of cardboard and placed them in the eggs. The children opened the eggs and kept the numbers. When everyone got a number, we ordered the numbers by sticking the cardboard pieces on the wall.
Activity 5: Bumblebee Feely Bag
Place some magnetic/ foam letters and a plastic bumblebee in a bag or in a container. Ask the children to close their eyes and to choose a letter, trying to not touch the bee, for they might get stung!
Bees Themed Songs
Fourteen action songs and rhymes all about Bees to get those bodies moving and grooving. Click on the image to head over to the post.
Bees Themed Books
Twenty-five of the best story picture books that are perfect for a theme all about Bees. Click on the image below to read what these books are about.
Bees Themed Math & Literacy Activity Book
Your young learners will be engaged and have lots fun with this Busy Bee No-Prep Activity book. Concepts such as making patterns, addition to 10, ten-frames and rhyming words are covered, while fine-motor and visual discrimination skills are developed.
The Very Greedy Bee is such a great book, and even though there are not a lot of extension activities that can be done with it, I still read it at the beginning of our unit on bees. I especially love the YouTube video, where the animated author, Steve Smallman, reads it to a school. You can find the video here.
ACTIVITIES
I Can Draw!
This activity can be either teacher directed, where children follow the teachers directions, or children can draw their own bees. They can copy the bee, flower and beehive on the pictures provided during quiet time.
What you need:
- Print-outs of the worksheets
- Pencils, coloring pencils and/ or markers and crayons.
Ten Frames
What is a Ten Frame:
A ten frame is a two-by-five rectangular frame into which counters are placed to demonstrate numbers less than or equal to 10. Counters can be arranged in different ways to represent different numbers, which visually help your children develop strong number sense. It is important to always remind the children to start filling the ten-frame up from the left.
What you need:
- Print outs of ten-frame worksheets
- Markers
- Counters
- A small whiteboard
- Number cards 1 – 10
How to use this resource:
Everyone sits in a circle and the teacher draws a ten-frame on a small whiteboard. Ask volunteers to pick a number card and then place that many counters on the ten-frame. Remind the children to always start from the left. Continue until all the kids had a chance.
Hand out the worksheets and ask the children to complete it by coloring the ten frames.
I Can Build a Bee with Shapes!
On the next page of the Busy Bee No-Prep Activity Book, children will use lots of shapes to create a bumble bee.
What you need:
- Cut-outs of one big (body) and one small (head) yellow circles for each child (about 4 inches in diameter for the big circle and 3 inches in diameter for the small one)
- 2 ovals cut out of grey/ light blue paper for the wings (about 3 inches in length)
- 4 Strips of black paper (about half an inch in width) per child
- A small triangle cut out of black paper for the stinger
- A small piece of squared black paper for each child to cut the legs out of
How to use this resource:
Give each child the cut-outs of the shapes and ask them to put these together to make a bee. When they are done, they count and record the amount of each of the shapes.
I Can Mix Colors!
What you need:
- Red, yellow and blue paint (poster color or water colors)
- Paint brushes
- Print out of the activity sheet
How to use this resource:
Be prepared to get messy! Demonstrate mixing red & blue to make purple, yellow and blue to make green and red & yellow to make orange. Ask the children to mix their own 3 colors together to try and get these colors and then to paint the flower.
I Can Make My Own Patterns!
What is a pattern for preschoolers:
Patterns are everywhere and children love to find these in the world around them. Patterns help children understand change and that things happen over time. Patterns are things that repeat in a logical way, like horizontal stripes on a t-shirt. They can be numbers, images or shapes.
How to teach patterns:
There are a lot of fun ways to teach and talk about patterns as they are everywhere around us. In nature, ask the children to make patterns with leaves, seeds, sticks etc. Ask children to look at clothing to see if they can notice any patterns. During cooking time, make a beautiful fruit display. Making patterns with rhythm and musical instruments is my favorite. Ask children to make loud and soft noises, or a bang and a whistle. There are just so many ways to get creative with patterns! Now, back to the activity.
What you need:
- Finger-paint or stamp pads
- ‘I can make my own patterns!’ activity sheet
How to use this resource:
Demonstrate how to make ABAB, ABBA, ABCABC patterns using beads. Hand out the activity sheets and ask children to make their own patterns using their fingers and the paint.
Parts of a bee! Labelling Activity
What you need:
- Scissors
- Glue
- ‘I can label a bee’ activity sheet
- Insects Song
How to use this resource:
To kick this activity off, we watch this cute little action song on YouTube about the body parts of an insect. The kids love the actions and the easy to follow lyrics.
We then look at the beginning and ending sounds of all of the body parts. For example ‘Leg begins with /l/, wing with /w/ and abdomen begins with /a/ and ends with /n/. After that, the children cut out the words and with the teacher’s assistance, paste these onto the correct body part.
Things That Rhyme With Bee!
How to teach rhyming:
I have always found teaching rhyming words quite challenging in my Pre-K classes. I find that some children get it, and some just don’t. I found this article over at The Pride Reading Program, which breaks the process of teaching rhyming words down into easy-to-implement and easy-to-understand steps. Please click on the link if you have ever found teaching rhyming words difficult.
What you need:
- Scissors
- Glue
- ‘Things that rhyme with bee’ activity sheet
- Word Families Matching Puzzles
How to use this resource:
Children work in pairs to put some of the Word Families Puzzle pieces together. Each pair gets a turn to sound out and read their puzzles. I ask the children to notice how all the words in one set sound the same – how they rhyme. Then I ask them to think of some words that rhyme with bee. For example, I ask: ‘Does tree rhyme with bee?’ or ‘Does picture rhyme with bee?’
If it seems like most children are getting the concept, they cut out the pictures on the ‘Things that rhyme with bee’ activity sheets and paste it into the correct column. The teacher assists the children that does not quite get it yet, by repeating all the words.
Busy Bees Fingerprint Addition!
What you need:
- Finger-print Addition Activity Sheets
- Paint
- Dice
How to use this resource:
Hand out the activity sheets and give each child a dice. Children throw the dice and make that amount of finger prints using yellow paint, in the first space. Throw the dice again and make that many amount of yellow finger prints in the second space. Add the two and record the answer. When the paint has tried children can turn the yellow finger prints into tiny little busy bees!
Bees Themed Art: Rock Painting
I found this activity over at rockpaint.co.za. We did not have enough time to complete it in the class this week as we had to do two days of online learning. But we will definitely do it next year! Click on the image to head over to their website for full instructions..
Bees Themed Science
I found this Fun Science Experiment on Pollination over at jdaniel14smom.com. Click on the links or images to head over to their blogs for full instructions. There is a printable of a bee that you will find when you download the free lesson plan at the top of this page that you can use in this activity.
STEM: Can you transfer the pollen equally?
This activity can get quite messy, so make sure to put down some old newspaper. Divide the children into groups of 4. Give each group a pipette, a cup of ‘nectar’ (water with yellow food coloring, and a container with lots of pockets. The groups need to transfer the pollen equally. The first group that finishes is the winner.
Bees Themed Snack Idea
I also found the idea for these cute bees and flowers snacks at amomsimpression.com. You will need bananas, grapes, round crackers, peanut butter and chocolate sauce. Put these all together as seen in the picture, and enjoy!
Click on the images below to download the Bee Themed No-Prep Activity Book
